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we receive; great Sirius equals sixty-three of our suns; the Pole Star eighty-six. "Think of an eighty-fold sun. However, some are still more astonishing: Vega blazes with the light of three hundred and forty-four suns; Capella with the light of four hundred and thirty; Arcturus with the light of five hundred and sixteen, while mighty Alcyone, the glorious center around which we all, suns and worlds, are supposed to circle, blazes with the light of twelve thousand of our suns!" If our little sun can boast of a family with worlds of such beauty and greatness as Venus and Earth and glorious Saturn and mighty Jupiter, how shall we measure the number, the splendor and the magnitude of the worlds which circle about such centers as Sirius, Vega, Capella, Arcturus and Alcyone?—

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SUNSHINE

The sunshine of Persia forms one of its greatest attractions. The natives are very much alarmed when an eclipse of the sun takes place, as they are afraid they are going to lose their benefactor. A Persian gentleman once visited England, and on his return to his native country was questioned by his friends as to which was the better land to live in. His reply was to the effect that in England the houses were grander, the scenery more beautiful, but that there was no sunshine.

A worldly life may have more show, but the Christian life has more shine. (Text.)

(3116)

SUNSHINE IN THE CHURCH

On Mount Sinai, in a noted convent, is the chapel of the Burning Bush. A feature of this chapel is a window so situated that the sun shines through it only on one day in every year.

But the church that would really light human life must have sunshine in all its windows every day in the year.

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SUNSHINE, SCATTERING

During the "cotton famine" in Lancashire, England, in 1865, just after our civil war, one of the mill-owners called his operatives together and told them he must close the mills. It meant poverty to him and ruin to them. Flickering hope sank in black despair. Presently a delicate, sweet girl, thin and pale with suffering—she was a Sunday-school teacher—started and sang two stanzas of this hymn:

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, The clouds ye so much dread, Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.

A sunburst of hope came over the despairing company when the touching and comforting strain was ended. It proved a prophecy. The proprietor determined to struggle on a while longer, and soon the mill was running again at full work.

(3118)

See.

Sunstroke, Warding Off—See.

SUPERIOR MEN

Without the presence of the superior man, the "paradise of the average man," as this country has been called, would become a purgatory to all those who care chiefly, not for success, but for freedom and power and beauty. One of the greatest privileges of the average man is to recognize and honor the superior man, because the superior man makes it worth while to belong to the race by giving life a dignity and splendor which constitute a common capital for all who live. The respect paid to men like Washington and Lincoln, Marshall and Lee, Poe and Hawthorne, affords a true measure of civilization in a community.—

(3119)

SUPERIORITY OF POSITION

In Java sitting down is a mark of respect; in the Mariana Islands the inferior squats to speak to a superior who would consider himself degraded by sitting in the presence of one who should be objectively as well as figuratively "below" him. The punctilios relating to the fundamental rule that rank is defined by elevation are carried to absurdity in the Orient. When an English carriage was procured for the Rajah of Lombok, it was found impossible to use it because the driver's seat was the highest, and for the same reason successive kings of Ava refused to ride in the carriages presented to them by ambassadors. In Burmah, that a floor overhead should be occupied would be